The Art of the Lathe

B.H. Fairchild's The Art of the Lathe is a collection of poems centering on the working-class world of the Midwest, the isolations of small-town life, and the possibilities and occasions of beauty and grace among the machine shops and oil fields of rural Kansas.

". . . James Joyce's Stephen Dedalus spoke of forging the conscience of his race in the smithy of his soul; in the dusty light of a Kansas machine shop, B.H. Fairchild has performed similar magic. -- R.S. Gwynn

"B.H. Fairchild brings sympathetic insight to the people the machinists, welders, and farmers he writes of. And like a fine novelist, he has a gift for focusing on those moments when lives constrained by psychological or economic circumstances are touched by beauty and significance." -- Timothy Steele

"With elegance and restrained subtlety, Mr. Fairchild interweaves topics that become something like musical themes, including the central theme of machine work . . .Anyone who can lay claim to the authorship of this much excellent poetry wins my unqualified and grateful admiration." -- from the introduction by Anthony Hecht